The decreasing cost and size of mobile computing and communications devices, and their increasing capabilities, contributes to the explosive growth in new mobile systems and applications. Laptop and handheld computers, as well as Personal Digital Assistants (PDA's) commonly use wireless communications to connect to a network of available services. At the same time, mobile and cellular telephones increasingly incorporate computing capabilities with Internet access. In the near future, most appliances will also incorporate communications interfaces for remote management. These advances, together with other technologies like “active badges” and inexpensive position sensing devices, will continue to increase the popularity of location-aware applications.
Many location-aware computer and communications already in use employ location-dependent data so that the geographic location of both service providers, their clients, and other entities can be taken into account for a variety of purposes. These applications include navigation, fleet management, resource location and mapping services, many of which are provided over the Internet. As Global Positioning System (GPS) devices and other positioning technologies become more accurate and less expensive, the number and variety of location-aware applications will continue to grow dramatically.
Today, when a mobile phone is used to access data services it connects to a portal site and it is presented a set of services. The user may sometimes have the ability to personalize his/her portal by choosing the set of services that are of interest. Mobile services available today are static; i.e., there is no location information associated with them. As a result, the same set of services are presented to the user irrespective of their location.